Fun With Google Books' Ngram Viewer
Assuming that when and in what number a word appears in Google's new database of "nearly 5.2 million digitized books" (h/t today's NYTimes) is a decent proxy for when and what society's talking about what do these graphs have to say about some popular mass tort topics? The x-axis runs from 1900 to 2008. The y-axis is the percentage or rate of appearance if you will of the word or phrase (e.g. mesothelioma). Try it yourself at Google labs.
Mesothelioma:
Silicosis:
Hormone Replacement Therapy:
And how the curve of "the next big thing" tends to look over time:
Interferon:
Apoptosis:
And the current big thing, the microbiome:
